December 22, 2005

Less virtual, more real

We often think about the Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop as an "open lab" in cyberspace -- it simulates a community of practice in high gear for 7 weeks -- but it involves real people working on real problems in real ways, all at a distance. And we reflect on everything in the workshop itself, much like the reflective conversations in a community. Last November we got into a discussion about how the "practice weeks" in the middle of the workshop produce interesting work that builds on earlier projects but then sits in the Cybrary waiting for the next workshop.

We had the idea of presenting and then building upon the work of Workshop participants in CPsquare. We decided that all workshop participants would be invited to join a session that presents the work produced during their workshop. The discussion in CPsquare would be informal but possibly more far-ranging than the concentrated work session in the workshop.

So our first experiment with this idea begins on January 3rd. It's grown into a conference with 2 telephone calls a week during the whole month with intervening asynchronous discussions about Web 2.0 tools. We're even inviting non-members to join us: http://www.cpsquare.org/News/archives/000060.html

We didn't consider it, but this probably implies that if and when a summary of one of these sessions is produced in CPsquare, we will need to put a copy in the Workshop Cybrary. Makes for a new category in the. And it more to read in the Cybrary. And where will that lead? Posted by smithjd at December 22, 2005 06:16 PM | TrackBack